So, corporations are lying about the skilled job market too? Shocker…

Matt Yglesias points me today to an elegant recent study of the job market. As you know, the business community has been grousing for years that they simply can’t find people who are qualified for all the complex new jobs they have on offer. This is known as a “skills gap,” sometimes referred to as “structural unemployment.” The response of liberal economists has typically been to tell employers that they just need to raise wages: if they pay more, then people with stronger skills will apply for their jobs. Employers moan that this is just unpossible.

Now along come Alicia Modestino, Daniel Shoag, and Joshua Ballance to look at things a different way. Their approach is so simple I’m surprised they’re the first, but apparently they are. All they did was analyze an online database of job offerings to find out whether employers made their hiring requirements stricter when unemployment was high and they could be more selective about who they hired. Do I even have to tell you the answer?